I got to Pino's ten minutes early, and I grabbed a booth at the back of the restaurant. As I sat down, I got a text from Ranger asking where I was. I responded that I was about to have lunch with Joe. "What's up?" I texted.

"I wondered if you could visit Dickie with me. I'm going to kill him otherwise."

"Sure, but you realize that this will be a little like the blind leading the blind, don't you? If you want to kill him, I don't know if I will stop you."

"Just you being with me will keep me calm."

"You say the sweetest things =) I'll come find you at the office after I finish my visit with Joe."

Morelli walked in and weaved his way through the tables to the back booth. He gave me a kiss of hello and lightly tugged my ponytail, and sat down at the booth with a smile on his face. "How are you?" I said.

"Good. My captain gave me four thousand dollars towards a new car, since mine got torched in the line of duty yesterday. I was thinking about getting another one soon anyway, so this is just a nice addition to the money that I have saved up for a new car. I have insurance money coming as well, so I should be in good stead for going car shopping."

"What are you driving now?"

"I've got a rental, an Impala, that is a nice car to drive. The problem with it is that it doesn't have room in it for Bob, and Bob likes a car that he has enough space to walk around in when I am driving and one that he can hang his head out the window. I ideally would like leather seats so that the Bob-hair doesn't stick, but I'm not sure how practical leather seats are with transporting skips to the precinct after I arrest them."

"Lots of options."

"Uh-hunh." The waitress came and took our orders. Neither Morelli nor I had to look at the menus. As our regular date spot, quick lunch spot, don't-want-to-cook spot and everything in-between, we had memorized the menus quite some time ago. "What about you? You've had your car for about four months, which I think is a new record with you. What are you planning on doing?"

"Ranger is encouraging me to just drive one of the fleet cars. He has told me that it's a job perk. I don't know if I want to though."

"Why not? At least then you'll be in a car that was built in this decade, and the car would have both working heat and air conditioning."

"Some of my cars have had air conditioning."

"Yeah? Which one?"

"The one that I had last Christmas."

"But that one didn't have heat, and since it was December that fact was very noticeable. It's bad when you have to drive with a blanket on your lap, and it blew snow on your face when you put on the defrost."

"Lula was actually happy when that one went to car heaven. She said that, if it hadn't died when it did, she was planning on torching it herself."

Morelli laughed. "So how is Ranger?"

"Going nuts with our guest. He asked me to go with him for a visit as the guest is driving him nuts and me being there will stop him from killing him."

"Did you agree?"

"I did, but I plan on stepping out of the room to give Ranger full rein to do what he wants." Morelli laughed again. "I mean, seriously, it would be classed as extenuating circumstances, wouldn't it?"

"Keep him calm. I would hate to have to bring him into the station."

"Why? I thought you would like it."

"He makes you happy and takes care of you well, and for that reason alone I don't want to have to arrest him. That's the first point. The second point is that I wouldn't want Ranger mad at me. He has a tendency to strike back, as shown by your guest, and you wouldn't even see it coming. Third of all, Bob likes him."

"Bob likes everybody."

"I know, but Bob particularly likes Ranger, and Ranger doesn't seem to mind the dog hair or doggie slobber. I put a lot of stock into who Bob likes. I have always thought that dogs are good judges of people."

"When did you decide that?"

"When I started to work with Ranger on the case of your guest. He came over to the house a few times while we worked through stuff."

"Your new view is refreshing."

"I have decided to work with Ranger on things. He has computer search engines that I can only dream of, and he can provide back-up that my team isn't trained for. He helped me recently on a case, and I greatly appreciated it. I was spinning my wheels working on my own. I don't know how Ranger feels, but I have decided not to fight him any longer."

"That's very mature of you. Were you able to close the case?"

"It's still in progress." He cleared his throat. "We are trying to keep this quiet, since I'm on that case still where I am working with Terry and I am still linked publically to her. However, I have started to see someone."

"Hey, that's great! Do I know her?" I held my breath in a sudden panic. "It's not Terry or Joyce, is it?"

Morelli smiled. "No", he said. "I don't know if you know her. She wasn't in your grade and she went to a different school. Her name is Becky Bianchi." I shook my head. I didn't know her. "She goes to the same church as my mother. My mother dragged me to church about six weeks ago and I saw her across the congregation. I went steadily for a couple of weeks and, when I saw her again, I asked her out. We've seen each other a few times now. We've been going to Newark for our dates. I told her about Terry and she understands why I have to keep this quiet."

"Does your family know?"

"They do or, at least, my mother and grandmother do. I have asked them to keep the information quiet, so I don't know whether anyone else in the family yet knows."

"I'm happy for you." And I was. Morelli seemed content and settled in a way that he had never been content when I was going out with him. I told him that.

Morelli smiled. "I am happy, but it's a quiet happiness. In our relationship I was also happy, but it was a bright happiness, all filled with sparkles and fireworks. This relationship with Becky is a steadier relationship. We're still in the beginning stages, but we are developing a good friendship. She seems like a good person and I'm enjoying getting to know her. When we broke up, I thought my life was over and I had never felt pain like I had felt then. But now? I've done a lot of thinking over the last few months. I can see why you broke it off. Going out with you made me feel alive, but I don't know if I want a relationship with sparkles and fireworks. Long term, I don't know if it would have worked. This relationship feels good and right for me."

Our meatball subs came to the table, and I thanked the server before she walked away. I reached around the plates and held Morelli's hand for a moment. "I really am happy for you, Joe. I thought long and hard when we broke up. It was as hard for me as it was for you, despite me coming to the conclusion that I also didn't want fireworks in my romantic relationship. Having said that, I still value you as one of my best friends and I hope we always will be."

Morelli smiled. "Me, too", he said. He flipped his hand over so that he was holding me in his palm, and he squeezed gently. "I'll always love you, and you'll always be my cupcake."

I grinned. "That's just what I always wanted." I pulled my hand back and picked up my sub to take a huge bite. I sighed in happiness. Morelli being happy with someone who wasn't Terry or Joyce or me, and me being happy with Ranger, and a superior meatball sub? Life couldn't get much better than that.

"So", I said, "is Grandma Bella still on the warpath?" Grandma Bella was Joe's grandmother, a decrepit scarecrow of a woman who was known as being pure evil. She was the kind of woman that mothers made their kids cross over to the other side of the street when they saw her. She was stoop-shouldered and had long iron-gray hair perpetually arranged in an updo, beady dark eyes that missed nothing, and a vile temper. She became more Sicilian with every passing year, even though she hadn't been back to Sicily in over fifty years. She had a mole on her face that grew more hair every time I saw her, a sharp hooked nose, and she had the ability to cast the eye, Sicilian voodoo that allowed her to curse people. Joe insisted that she was harmless and misunderstood, but I'd had enough experience with the eye to know that, when she cursed you, the results were disastrous. Unfortunately for me, she cursed me a lot.

Ever since I had broken up with Joe, she had been on the warpath for me. I had seen her a few times but, when I saw her, I had turned around and gone the other way. She, fortunately, hadn't seen me, and it was a winning streak that I had wanted to continue. It would be good, however, to know that she was no longer looking for me.

"My grandmother isn't cursing you any longer. She is happy that I am seeing Becky. With meeting Becky at church, my grandmother has said that she is happy that I am seeing someone who is so devout. I'm not sure how devout Becky is – she had only been at church since her mother had just passed and her mother had gone to church frequently. She was paying homage to her mother. However, my grandmother is happy that I found her at church. The last time she tried to curse you when she saw you out and about, I pointed out to her that I wouldn't be seeing Becky if it wasn't for you, and that breaking up with me was the right thing for you to do. I haven't heard any complaints about you since."

"So I don't have to go the other way when I see her any longer?"

Morelli smiled. "I don't think so. It wasn't working, anyway. Grandma Bella just said that she had seen you but that she couldn't run as fast as you and couldn't catch up to you when you were running away."

"Hunh. So I had a lucky break?"

"Several, judging by the number of times that my grandmother saw you. You know though that the eye is all superstition, don't you?"

"You always say that, but in my experience your grandmother's curses work."

"Cupcake, your cars blow up and bad things happen to you whether my grandmother curses you or not. It's just you."

"You're not going to call me a disaster magnet again, are you?" I gave him my squinty eye.

Morelli smiled. "The last time I called you that, I thought you were going to throw something at me. And since what is in front of you is the rest of your meatball sub, I don't want to take the chance. Not only would it stain, but it would be a waste of a superior sandwich."

I smiled as I took another bite. It would. It really, really would.

About half an hour later, Morelli and I walked out of Pino's together and he walked with me to our cars. He had parked beside me, and as we walked he put his arm over my shoulder and gave me a hug. "Thanks for being so supportive of my new relationship", he said.

I smiled at him. "I really am happy for you", I said. When we got to the car, I tiptoed up and gave him a kiss on his cheek. I gave him a hug, and he pulled me into his body tightly for a few seconds before stepping back.

"Do you think we could get together regularly for lunch?" he said. "I liked talking to you and, like you, I value our friendship."

I smiled again, relieved. What Morelli had was what I had always wanted for him and was what he had always wanted for himself. I was just glad that he could see that our relationship wasn't it. "I'd like that", I said.

A car drove up and the two thugs from Dickie's bookie looked at us. Ronald McDonald powered down the window and pointed a flamethrower out the window. "Hey, Stephanie. Do you have the money for us?" he said.

Joe tensed beside me. "I don't have the money and, if I did, I wouldn't help that asshole anyway", I said.

The man shot out a stream of flames, and Morelli's car caught fire. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of the fleeing car's license plate.

"Holy crap!" said Joe as he looked at the car dazed. "Was my car just torched by Ronald McDonald?"